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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



OF 



Allen T. Caperton, 

(A SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA,) 

DELIVERED IN THE 

Senate and House of Representatives, 



December 21 and 22, 1876. 



PUBLISHED BV ORDER OF CONGRESS. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1877. 



/V 



/ 



ADDRESSES 



ON THE 



Death of A. T. Caperton. 



proceedings in the senate. 
December 21, 1876. 



Mr. Davis. Mr. President, according to notice heretofore given, I 
now submit two resolutions having for their object the furnishing of 
an opportunity for the Senate and House of Representatives to bear 
testimony to the character and public services of Allen T. Caper- 
ton, and ask their present consideration. 

The President pro tempore. The resolutions proposed by the Sen- 
ator from West Virginia will be read. 

The Chief Clerk read as follows • 

Resolved, That as an additional mark of respect to the memory of 
Allen T. Caperton, late a Senator from the State of West Vir- 
ginia, business be now suspended, that the friends and associates of 
the deceased may pay fitting tribute to his private and public virtues. 

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate this reso- 
lution to the House of Representatives. 

The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 



ADDRESS OF MR. DAVIS ON THE 



Address of Mr. Pavis, of West Virginia. 

Mr. President: The Senate is again called upon to suspend its 
ordinary proceedings, that it may in a proper manner mark its respect 
for one of its former members whose death it laments; to testify to 
his private worth and public virtues and give expression to its sorrow. 

Scarcely a session of this body passes but it is invaded by death, 
and some familiar face, some associate, is summoned hence and called 
to rest forever from all earthly care. 

In my single term of service here, yet incomplete, the painful duty 
now upon us has been, alas! too frequently performed. 

We have followed to the grave and shed the tear of affection over 
some of the ablest and most distinguished men of our day and time. 

Our late President of the Senate, Vice-President Wilson, the na- 
tion's and people's friend; the learned and gifted Sumner; Ex-Pres- 
ident Johnson, self-taught and self-educated, who by force of energy 
and native abilities hewed his way from the humblest walks of life 
up to the executive chair of the nation ; the patriot governor, Buck- 
ingham; the amiable and affectionate Ferry; and the earnest, able, 
and fearless Davis, all have passed away. 

In this instance it has fallen to the lot of West Virginia to mourn 
and render up one of her ablest, best, and truest sons. 

Toward the close of the last session of the Senate, prolonged as it 
was into the late summer, when the heat was most oppressive and 
fatigue and exhaustion rested upon all, after but a brief illness of 
organic disease of the heart, on the 26th day of last July, death found 
Mr. Caperton at his post of duty. 

It is not my purpose on this solemn occasion to pronounce any 
studied words of praise and commendation over my friend and dead 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 5 

colleague, believing that the best eulogy upon so noble a character 
will be the plain and simple story of his life. 

Allen T. Caperton was descended from an old Virginia family, 
and was born at Union, Monroe County, Virginia, (now West Vir- 
ginia,) November 21, 1810. His ancestors on the paternal side were 
English and on the maternal Scotch, a commingling of nationalities 
that has produced some of the greatest men of our country. His 
great-grandparents on both sides were among the earliest settlers on 
the headwaters of the Kanawha, then overrun by hostile Indians ; 
and the fact that his grandmother was captured by savages, her infant 
child butchered before her eyes, and she detained in captivity for four 
years, will give some idea of the courage it took and the dangers 
that had to be encountered in opening to civilization that fertile and 
beautiful mountain region. 

Hugh Caperton, the father of the late Senator, was a man of great 
ability, high character, and commanding influence in the section of 
Virginia where he resided. He represented his district in the Thir- 
teenth Congress, and was the intimate friend and admirer of the great 
statesmen Clay and Webster, and other leaders of the whig party, to 
which he belonged. 

Mr. Caperton passed the earlier years of his life at the home of 
his father, near Union, and at that village received the rudiments of 
his education. At the age of fourteen he went to Huntsville, Ala- 
bama, to attend school, making the long journey on horseback in 
company with an elder brother. He afterward attended the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, and completed his education at Yale College, in 1832, 
graduating seventh in a class of fifty-three at the age of twenty-two. 
]n college he was noted, as in after life, for his studious habits, indus- 
try, and good deportment; though modest and reserved, he was 
popular with his fellow-students and beloved and esteemed by his 
professors. 

After leaving college he studied, law under the late Judge Briscoe 



ADDRESS OF MR. DAVIS ON THE 



Baldwin, at Staunton, Virginia; was admitted to the bar in 1834, and 
commenced the practice of his profession at his native town. His 
natural ability, eloquence, and close attention to business soon se- 
cured for him a prominent position as a lawyer, and his practice 
rapidly extended throughout the southwestern portion of the State. 
He was not, however, long permitted to confine himself solely to his 
professional duties, but in 1841, at the solicitation of his friends and 
neighbors, he took part in politics and was elected to the house of 
delegates of Virginia, and in 1844 to the senate, after which, until 
i860, he was at various times a member of both houses of the State 
legislature. In 1848 he was a member of the national convention 
that nominated President Taylor. Although elected to the legisla- 
ture at an early age and at a time when some of the ablest and most 
brilliant men of the State were members, he soon advanced to the 
front rank, and gained an enviable reputation throughout the State 
as a useful legislator and a ready and forcible debater. 

His service in the legislature was marked by his untiring efforts 
and best exertions in favor of every measure looking to the progress 
and prosperity of the State generally, but more particularly to the 
opening up and development of the vast resources of the portion he 
represented. All propositions for internal improvements and public 
works found in him a zealous and energetic supporter, and he was 
held in the highest esteem by all parties. 

A newspaper correspondent, speaking of him in 1858, says: 

A. T. Caperton, of Monroe, is a whig and has long enjoyed the confidence of 
the whole people of his section. He has never been defeated for office. Mr. 
CAPERTON is one of the handsomest men in the legislature, the ablest member of 
his party on the floor, and would make a valuable and useful member of Congress. 

During all this time, notwithstanding his service in the legislature 
and the interest he took in politics, he not only continued the prac- 
tice of his profession with success, being engaged in almost every 
important suit in his section of the State, but found time to devote 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 1 

to agriculture and stock-growing, of which he was very fond, and 
was reputed among the most successful in the State. 

He was also the active friend and supporter of nearly all import- 
ant enterprises projected and put in operation in the southwestern 
portion of Virginia. 

He was one of the most influential directors in the James River 
and Kanawha Canal, looked upon in that day and time, as now, a 
work of national importance, its object being to connect the waters 
of the East and West, and furnish means of transportation between 
the distant sections of the country. 

In 1850 and 1861 he was elected a member of the constitutional 
convention of Virginia, and, like many prominent members of the 
whig party in the South, was a conservative union man, and opposed 
secession until the commencement of actual hostilities, when he felt, 
as many others did, that his duty was to link his fortunes with those 
of his State. In 1862 he was elected by the legislature of Virginia 
as a member of the Confederate States senate, which position he 
filled until the close of the war, in 1865; after which he returned to 
his home, accepted the result of the war in good faith, and resumed 
the practice of his profession, devoting much of his time and 
energies, as in the past, to the opening up and developing the 
resources of West Virginia, particularly adverting and bringing to 
the attention of foreign capitalists her fine coal, timber, and grazing 
lands; and in this direction he accomplished much and his efforts 
were crowned with reasonable success. 

On the 17th of February, 1875, after a spirited contest, he was 
almost unanimously elected a member of this body to succeed Hon. 
Arthur I. Boreman, and took his seat on the 4th of March following. 
His election was received with general satisfaction throughout the 
State He brought to the Senate great strength of character, 
matured experience in public affairs, sound judgment, and an accu- 
rate knowledge of the history of the Government and the necessities 




of the country, and particularly the South. He had the liveliest 
appreciation of the responsibility resting upon a Senator anil his 
duty to the General Government and his State. He recognized in 
the amplest manner that old issues were dead and that a glorious 
and prosperous future awaited the whole country if good feeling 
could be restored between the sections. His greatest concern and 
deepest anxiety was over the unsettled condition of our political 
affairs, and had he lived I have no doubt his voice would have been 
raised and energies exerted in behalf of peace and harmony. 

Such is a brief outline of the early life and public services of my 
departed colleague. 

For thirty-five years, it may be said, he was constantly under the 
eye of the public, filling many important positions of trust and con- 
fidence to which he had been elevated by the partiality of his neigh- 
bors and fellow-citizens. And during this long term of public service, 
quite an ordinary life-time, embracing and covering as it does a 
period as important, stirring, and exciting as has occurred in our 
history as a country, I have the pride and pleasure of recording that 
his conduct and character were so pure, so high, and so elevated that 
neither suspicion nor taint ever rested on either; and in all of his 
official acts and doings, in his professional and business dealings, he 
did his duty well, wronged neither state nor individual, and was 
uniformly just and honorable. 

He was a man of scholarly attainments, positive character, fixed 
principles, and strong convictions, a despiser of all tricks and narrow 
doings, a sound lawyer, modest and reserved, though a ready debater, 
thoroughly versed in the history of the country and politics, a lover 
of the Constitution and a close student of its wise provisions; all of 
which was supplemented by a large experience with men and affairs. 

Thus thoroughly equipped by nature and cultivation, he came up 
to our best ideas of an American Senator and statesman. 

The term of service of Senator Capep.ton as a member of this 



L1EE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 9 

body, less than two years, was so short that there was scarcely 
sufficient time for his associates to know him well and understand 
his noble character; but I believe I am authorized in saying that, 
even brief as it was, he enjoyed the esteem and respect of all, and 
none was more dearly beloved. 

Of commanding presence and dignified deportment, he inspired 
the respect of all with whom he came in contact. He was eminently 
social. Possessed of rare conversational powers and a cultivated 
mind, amiable disposition, and genial manner, warm-hearted and 
affectionate, he drew around and cemented to him friends wherever 
he went. He made but few speeches in the Senate, but when he did 
speak he brought to the subject careful and accurate thought, close 
research, and sound judgment. His highest ambition, best purpose, 
and most earnest wish were that the estrangement growing out of 
our late unfortunate war should forever disappear and be replaced 
by harmony and good feeling between the people of the whole 
Union, believing when this happy end should be attained there was 
a brilliant and prosperous future before the country. 

He was an earnest advocate of internal improvements on the part 
of the General Government, feeling that if Congress could inaugurate 
and carry out a proper system it would prove of incalculable benefit 
to the country and help to bring about the harmony and friendly 
feeling between the people of the States which he so much desired 
and believed necessary to the perpetuity of our free institutions. 

His speeches on the Centennial and river and harbor bills, deliv- 
ered during the last session of Congress, breathe a spirit of progress 
and patriotism and hope for the future. 

But it was at his own home, in the midst of his neighbors and 
friends of a lifetime and in the quiet sacredness of the domestic circle, 
where he was best known, that he was loved most. 

A fond and affectionate husband, a generous and loving father, he 
enjoyed the devotion of his family. 



ADDRESS OF MR. WRIGHT ON THE 



It was my lot to be one of the number who accompanied his 
remains from this capital to their final resting-place at his home, 
and his popularity and the affection cherished for his memory were 
marked by the general grief and gloom that pervaded all classes as 
we drew nearer to the end of our sad journey. His death was not 
only a great loss to his State and the country, but particularly to his 
family and the community in which he lived. He was endeared 
to all classes, and in the long procession of relatives, friends, and 
neighbors that followed his remains to their last resting-place, 
among the grief-stricken and those who stood nearest the grave 
were some of his former slaves. 

Although cut off in the midst of his usefulness and at a time when 
he could apparently do the most good for his country and State, we 
bow with better submission to this dispensation of a divine Provi- 
dence, believing and knowing that society, the times, and the age 
were better for his having lived. 



^ddress of Mr. Wright, of Jowa. 

Mr. President: I should be unmindful of the strong promptings 
of friendship, indifferent to duty, and unjust to the memory and many 
sterling qualities of head and heart of the late Senator Caperton, if 
I did not add something to what has just been so appropriately said 
by his surviving colleague. I first met the late Senator when he 
appeared to enter upon his duties here in March, 1875. From tliat 
time until his death our relations, official and personal, for those 
theretofore strangers to each other, were more than usually intimate. 
Among other duties, he was assigned to the committee of which I 
was then made chairman, a committee (Claims) where lie found hard 
work, drudgery, need of patience, care, thoughtfulness, watchfulness, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. I I 

and where, certainly equal to any other in this body, there is 
abundant opportunity to test the fidelity of its members to duty and 
their ability to dispose of the many perplexing and important ques- 
tions arising. And I am sure that I but express the united judgment 
of his associates there when I say that no man could have been more 
faithful, painstaking, or attentive to every question arising, nor more 
solicitous to do even and exact justice to the claimant and the Gov- 
ernment, than our late colleague. 

In the committee-room, as in the Senate, he was the same affable, 
courteous, polite, and courtly gentleman, and in both, as in private 
and social life, never in an unseemly or untimely manner pressing 
his views, never seeming to obtrude his opinions in the spirit of the 
determined and obstinate antagonist, but mildly, pleasantly, and yet 
with a firmness which satisfied you that he knew his ground, had 
studied it well, and that his convictions or conclusions were the 
result of thought and care, and not of passion, prejudice, or other 
than what was to him the very right of the case. He could listen 
to and take part in fair and just argument; to aught else than this 
and the very law and justice of the matter presented he ever turned 
a deaf ear. 

Senator Caperton was educated at Yale, and had as his class- 
mates and fellow-students, among others, John and Wellington Gor- 
don, of Virginia; Rhett and Rutledge, of South Carolina; Shorter, 
of Georgia, as well as others who were afterward of distinguished 
prominence in their several States and in the nation. One of these 
(Hon. Henry Sherman, now of this city) says of him as a student 
that " He was of fine personal appearance, courteous in his address, 
of high moral character, and very popular among his fellow- 
students." And following him through after life this friend adds 
that " He was eminent in his profession, prominent in his State; in 
his business he was a man of large conscientiousness and high-toned 
honor and integrity. I frequently found him, after he entered upon 



ADDRESS OF MR. WRIGHT ON' THE 



his duties in the Senate, very late at night poring over voluminous 
records and laboring with the utmost care and industry. Mis labori- 
ous and persistent attention to business, in my judgment, shortened 
his days." 

In private life, as we have already heard, the goodness and great- 
ness of the late Senator appeared in the most conspicuous manner. 
The man who — as another friend, who was for years brought into the 
closest and most intimate relations to him, in a letter now before me, 
says — I say the man who, "tender and guileless as an infant himself, 
could and did attach to him the affections of the young and the poor, 
enter into their plans and pleasures, identify himself with their in- 
terests; who had the almost sublime adoration of wifeand children, 
and who returned this with a devotion attracting the attention of all 
who knew him, who despised a little thing beyond expression; who, 
with that vigor of language of which on such occasions he was com- 
plete master, denounced all things little and mean .and wicked; who 
ever took an interest unequaled in the struggles and trials of those 
in distress and trouble; who as a man was exemplary in all the rela- 
tions of life" — such a man, I repeat, could not be otherwise than 
good; and greatness most logically and certainly followed, for good- 
ness leads to greatness; goodness is greatness. 

Senator Caperton belonged to that school of politics which taught 
the power and constitutionality of the General Government to engage 
in a general system of internal improvement. 

Entertaining these convictions, he was, as his public life will show, 
ever the most active supporter in his own State and in the nation of 
all those measures which tended to the material development, by a 
system of internal improvement or otherwise, of the old State which 
he loved so well, and of any and almost all schemes under the pat- 
ronage and fostering care of the General Government which in his 
opinion might contribute in any manner to its growth, greatness, and 
material prosperity. On this subject or on these matters he never, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 1 3 

as far as I can learn, and as his public record will attest, had any the 
least constitutional scruples. And yet it is perhaps not strange, in 
view of his associations, education, and from his devotion to his State, 
that he could quite naturally incline to side with his State in the late 
unpleasant and deprecated struggle. Hence he took a prominent 
part in that contest for what he thought were the rights of his State 
and his people. And yet the sincerity of the man and his convic- 
tions, his adherence to his principles as to the powers of the Govern- 
ment, and his, as I must believe, patriotic devotion to the Union and 
country in whose service he was engaged at the time of his death, is 
well shown by what he said to a near friend in almost his last hours, 
as given to me, when, referring to his public life, he said, "You know 
the influences under which I have lived and been brought up and 
strengthened in the views of States rights, consistent with which I 
could not do otherwise than I did. But," he added, " I am clear of 
those views now, and I accepted my present position with a firm 
determination to support the Union and Government of the United 
States, and my first ambition is to enforce upon the people of the 
State which I represent my conviction that our greatest good is to 
make the State of West Virginia as great a State in the Union as the 
Old Dominion of Virginia was in her palmy days." 

Such, Mr. President and Senators, were some of the characteristics 
and virtues, as they impressed me, of our late colleague; such almost 
his last words. Standing by his tomb and admonished by the occa- 
sion, our present surroundings, the scenes here enacted each day, how 
we should each be led to reflect upon the vanity and littleness of all 
human ambitions and aspirations! How fitting that we should for 
the passing hour, and indeed for time, bury the asperities, the bitter- 
ness, the criminations and recriminations of party and political strife, 
and upon their tomb build higher and still higher a love and devo- 
tion to that Union which is the only sure hope of our present and 
future greatness; that Union which should know neither sections nor 



14 ADDRESS OF MR. WITHERS ON THE 

parties; that country which our deceased colleague was, as I believe, 
in his service here, seeking to make stronger and better and purer; 
that country and that Union bequeathed to us by the noblest ancestry 
of the ages, and saved to us by the best blood of their equally noble 
children. 



^DDRESS OF yVlR. ^VlTHERS, OF VIRGINIA. 

Mr. President: Amid the many appropriate and graceful tributes 
to the memory of our departed associate, I ask the privilege of de- 
positing a modest chaplet on the same sacred shrine. 

To the interesting biographical sketch, the acute analyis of charac- 
ter, the warm expressions of appreciation and esteem to which the 
Senate has listened little need be added. Yet I feel in this connec- 
tion that something is due from the State which gave him birth, the 
State toward which his true and loyal heart was ever wont to turn 
with filial love and never-failing reverence. Though by the exigen- 
cies of the times he appeared on this floor as one of the faithful rep- 
resentatives of that fair daughter which had been so rudely carved 
from the mutilated form of that dismembered State, Allen T. Caper- 
ton was intus et in cute a Virginian of Virginians. His interest and 
his affections, refusing to be restrained within the narrow confines of 
West Virginia, included in their loving embrace all Virginia, whether 
old or new. Nay, sir, I may go further and say that while Virginia 
held the first place in his affections, no portion of his country, whether 
East or West, North or South, was excluded. His expansive patriot- 
ism, disdaining the restricted limits of State boundaries, embraced 
the interests of the whole people. 

Reared amid those grand old mountains which, like heaven's senti- 
nels, keep watch and ward around that loved ancestral home where 
his progenitors for generations had "lived and moved and had their 
being," it is not surprising that his mind was early imbued with that 



undying devotion to the principles of liberty and free government 
which in all ages has been deemed a characteristic of " the dweller 
among the hills." 

Blessed with a fine person, a strong and vigorous intellect improved 
by culture; of refined literary taste, with an exquisite and quiet humor; 
of temperate habits and genial disposition, it is not remarkable that 
he should have been early called to assume the duties and responsi- 
bilities of public life. Of that public career, long and honorable as 
it was, I shall speak very briefly. 

By inheritance, as well as by the convictions of his maturer judg- 
ment, he was an earnest but not a blind adherent of that grand old 
party which under the leadership of the "great commoner" attained 
such enviable distinction for its probity, its purity, and its patriotism 
as will in all time provoke the emulation of all political organizations; 
a party which, if not always fortunate in the inauguration of its 
schemes of statecraft and the election of its candidates, ever main- 
tained as its cardinal doctrine that the interests of the whole country 
were to be held superior to the gratification of individual ambition, 
and the prosperity of the people more to be valued than the triumph 
of the politician. 

These principles found in Mr. Caperton a steadfast and uncom- 
promising adherent. His intellect, naturally acute, was expanded by 
culture and disciplined by study in both northern and southern schools 
until it attained a breadth and comprehensive scope which was fatal 
alike to the narrow dogmatism of the sectionalist and the destructive 
frenzy of the fanatic. He was no one-idea man. In politics he knew 
no higher law than the Constitution of his country, was ambitious of 
no distinction except that incident to the faithful discharge of repre- 
sentative trust. He sought no selfish end, labored not for personal 
aggrandizement. His devotion to duty was so absolute and unques- 
tioning, his abnegation of self so utter and complete, that they over- 
shadowed that prudence which ordinarily prompts us to regard per- 



1 6 ADDRESS OF MR. WITHERS ON THE 

sonal comfort and personal safety superior to all other considerations, 
and thus doubtless accelerated the final catastrophe by which an 
honorable and useful career was so suddenly and sadly closed. En- 
ervated by the excessive heat and exhausted by the unusually arduous 
and protracted labors of the last session, with vital powers percepti- 
bly waning day by day, he yet, with brave heart and unblenching 
spirit, refused to seek amid other and more congenial surroundings 
that repose upon which his very existence depended. In his opinion 
the interests of his constituents required his personal attention and 
demanded his continued presence here. The members of the Sen- 
ate will not, I am sure, soon forget the earnest and almost impassioned 
tones of his voice as they fell for the last time upon our ears pleading 
for the inauguration and consummation of such enlarged and com- 
prehensive policy of internal improvements as would develop and 
enrich not only his own immediate constituency, but would redound 
to the advantage of the whole country. 

In his stem devotion to duty, in his delicate sense of honor, in his 
contempt for all that was little and mean, and in the fearless bravery 
of his loyal heart he seemed better suited to the chivalric than to 
the present utilitarian age. But it was in the domestic circle, amid 
the sweet endearments of home, that the most lovable and lovely 
traits of my friend's character found their fullest development. His 
appreciation of home joys and domestic pleasure was unusually acute, 
and however appreciated and honored might be his public service, he 
ever turned with unfailing zest and keen enjoyment to the delights 
of that mountain home whose elegant hospitalities he so much de- 
lighted to dispense, and to that family in whose affectionate minis- 
trations he found his highest happiness. In the sacred penetralia of 
that home there is " an aching void the world can never fill." I wi 1 
not with rude hand attempt to draw back the veil which shrouds sor- 
rows which it cannot wholly conceal. To "time, the comforter," and 
" to Him who doeth all things well," they can look alone for the heal- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTO.M. 17 

ing of their yet green wounds, assured that when that time shall come 
they will feel a just appreciation of his reputation as a public serv- 
ant, and will forever cherish as their dearest heritage the memory of 
his sweet domestic virtues. 

Mr. President, to arrest the sweeping current of heated political 
discussion which has since the commencement of the present session 
borne down everything before it; to still for a time the tones of mutual 
denunciation which have so persistently vexed the ear of the Senate; 
to withdraw our minds for a brief space from the consideration of 
the exciting questions which press upon us with such engrossing 
interest, and to turn with saddened hearts and subdued utterances 
to the performance of the touching duty of paying this tribute of 
respect and affection to the memory of our departed associate, is 
eminently judicious and must be productive of good. 

These ceremonies bring us face to face with the last great enemy, 
before whom the struggles of political parties are dwarfed into insig- 
nificance, and compel you to remember that "there is no work, nor 
device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest." 

The dreams of ambition, the mad quest for power and place, the 
aspirations of purest patriotism, alike pass away with the fleeting 
breath, and thus we '-bring our years to an end as a tale that is told:" 

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know nut anything. Also 
their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished ; neither have they any 
more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun. 

Such is the conclusion of him to whom was given wisdom beyond 
that which has ever fallen to man, and it becomes us well to ponder 
his words and so apply our hearts to the true wisdom that when our 
star sets at life's close "it ma)' set as sets the morning st.'.r, which 
goes not down behind the darkened west, but melts away into the 
brightness of the coming day." 



6 <! 



/Address of Mr, Edmunds, of Vermont. 

Mr. President: Mr. Caperton took his seat in this body as one 
of the representatives of West Virginia for the term of six years on 
the 4th of March, 1875. He died on the 26th of July, 1876. 

A law higher than constitutions and a power greater than that of 
States terminated the high trust his State had committed to him 
before one-fourth of its period of usefulness and honor had elapsed. 
The daily lesson of mortality, repeated in every age and every clime 
in the only language common to all the inhabitants of the earth, 
speaks as clearly to those in the most exalted as to those in the hum- 
blest stations. The cabinets and audience-chambers of kings and the 
halls of senates are as obedient to its inexorable voice as the lonely 
tent or wigwam of the poorest dweller in the desert. Misery and 
happiness, want and affluence, are equal before it ; and so day by day 
there disappear from the scene of human endeavor, as well the actors 
of the great parts as the simple figures who only pass unnoticed across 
the shadows of the most distant parts of the stage. 

In the brief career of Mr. Caperton among us, he had endeared 
himself to the whole body of his senatorial associates. Political 
friends and political opponents alike found in him those qualities of 
personal uprightness and independence that do so much always to 
mitigate the overzeal and soften the asperities of party strife. A 
man of much sensitiveness of temper and of strong opinions, the self- 
reverence and self-control flowing from a gentle spirit, a cultivated 
intellect, and long intercourse with his fellow-men in many stations 
of trust, made him always courteous in manner and conciliatory in 
advancing his own opinions and in opposing those of others. He lias 
been suddenly taken from the sphere of labor for his Slate and his 
country, upon which he had but just commenced. As we join in the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 19 

sorrows of the young commonwealth he represented, we naturally 
look backward to his predecessors and to her singular history. Mr. 
Caperton was only the third Senator of his class from that State. 
Mr. Boreman immediately preceded him, and Mr. Van Winkle pre- 
ceded Mr. Boreman, and was one of the first two Senators from West 
Virginia, Mr. Willey being his colleague. Out of the convulsions of 
the rebellion there was born a new and welcome sister in our great 
family of States. 

The substantial power of the old commonwealth of Virginia, 
glorious in all her previous history, east of the mountains, having 
carried her in 1S61 into the rebellion — although during a short period 
afterward she had representatives in the Senate — the people of the 
forty-eight counties of the western part of the State, lying among the 
beautiful and fertile valleys of the Alleghanies, in 1862 framed a con- 
stitution and government for a separate and independent State. The 
great majority of this people were loyal to the national unity of the 
Republic, and naturally felt deeply anxious that their fortunes should 
not be linked with those of Eastern Virginia in its sad attempt to 
break up the Government of the Union. After much consideration 
and many doubts, on the 31st of December, 1862, an act of Congress 
was passed providing for the creation of the new State of West Vir- 
ginia, and on the 19th of June, 1863, she became the thirty-fifth State 
of the Union, and the twenty-second of the new States. The char- 
acter of the political body that, as the legislature of Virginia, 
assented to the dismemberment of the State was not the clearest as 
being the constitutional legislature of the old State; but Congress 
exercised its undoubted political power to recognize it as such, and 
the State of West Virginia became an accomplished and unchange- 
able fact. It is not one of the least evils flowing from powerful 
assaults upon lawful government that the government itself is often 
forced to extreme measures and to the verge of its authority to [ire- 
serve and protect itself; and thus it sometimes transmits to later 



ADDRESS OF MR. EDMUNDS on THE 



times unsatisfactory precedents and examples that many in less 

emergencies are too apt to resort to as the justification or excuse for 

other steps dangerous to the common weal. As we reflect upon the 

characters and careers of departed statesmen and bring up to view 

the events with which they were connected in times of trouble and 

distress, can we not repeat with fervent emphasis? 

Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, 
Live till to-morrow, will liave passed away. 

Neither the purest motives nor the most exalted patriotism can 
prove an antidote to the poison of measures of any government be- 
yond its constituted power, however apt they may be for the exigen- 
cies of an existing occasion, or for an appeal to any other force than 
that of the law for the redress of grievances arising in a government 
constituted upon principles of justice and equal rights, and wherein, 
from period to period, recourse must be had to fresh expressions of 
the popular will. The men of the time and the excitement of the 
hour pass away, but the institutions and the body of the people, old 
and yet ever new, remain to rectify, in the sober light cf truth and 
reason, the evils that ignorance or passion, prejudice or corruption, 
may have inflicted upon society. 

To-day we make memorial to a prominent figure in the government 
of a great nation. One of that very small body of men, to whom, as 
"the sheet-anchor of the Government," the security and happiness of 
more than forty millions of people are chiefly committed, has been 
called, suddenly and forever, from his place. Such an event, although 
certain to occur very often, cannot fail to be solemn and impressive, 
not only — indeed not chiefly — from our awe of death, or from our 
friendship and respect for the man who has gone, but from consider- 
ations that relate to the connection of particular individuals, or 
indeed selected bodies of men, with affairs of state, and the little 
i ontribution the most fortunate are a< tually able to make to the sum 
of human events. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 21 

In this body, itself the most permanent in its personality of any un- 
der the Constitution except the judiciary, a very few years suffice to 
change almost entirely the elements of its composition. There now 
remain to us only three Senators who occupied their places at the 
beginning of Mr. Lincoln's administration, or who participated offi- 
cially in the long tragedy of the rebellion ; and there are only eleven 
who in 1868 were members of the high court that tried and acquittted 
the President. The accused and the greater part of his judges have 
long since left the forum — some for the simple duties and pleasures of 
citizenship, and some, with the chief personage in that great drama, 
have gone to their long repose, and to whose constantly increasing 
number has now been added one of the most recently appointed of 
the members of this body. 

Surely the works we personally do for our country must be few and 
small in the aggregate of history, and their permanent value must 
depend, not upon the glamour of oratory, the polish of scholarship, 
or skill in discussion, but rather on that deep spirit of truth and 
justice, and the courage to follow them always, that make up the 
character of him — 

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth 
Forever, and to noble deeds give birth, 
Or must go to dust without his fame, 
And leave a dead, unprofitable name, 
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause, 
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws 
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause. 



^ddress op yW.R. Bayard, of Delaware. 

Mr. President: On the 4th of March, 1875, our lamented asso- 
ciate, Allen Taylor Caperton, took his scat in this body, having 
been elected to serve until March, 1SS1. Death closed his career 
when but little more than a single year of his senatorial service had 



ADDRESS OF MR MAYARD ON THE 



been performed. During thi> short period there was little to signalize 
his service here, and in the quiet, steady, undemonstrative perform- 
ance of his duty must be found the basis of any commentary we may 
now make. 

I have said his period of service here was short, yet it was long 
enough to cause all who came to be acquainted with him to mourn 
that it should not have been longer. It was long enough to impress 
those whose acquaintance he then first made with respect and confi- 
dence. 

He came into this body with a high and unblemished personal 
repute, not built upon noisy professions and sustained by sensational 
advertisement, but firmly founded in the appreciation of his personal 
qualities by his friends, his neighbors, and that wide-spread circle of 
men of all shades of political opinion in Virginia and West Virginia 
amid whom his modest and virtuous life had been spent, and where 
a worthy ancestry had preceded him from the first foundations of 
civil government in that country. 

The term declared by the Psalmist to be the years of a man had 
been nearly passed by him, for he had reached his sixty-seventh year 
when the "dread arrest" was felt. But he had so lived that he did 
not fear to die, and although wrung with pain he met it as the imme- 
diate and recognized precursor of death with that fortitude which 
had i haracterized his whole life. He had lived remote from cities, 
and in the comparative seclusion of a country life had found his thea- 
ter of usefulness, duty, and quiet happiness. 

From the most venerable and one of the most highly respected 
institutions of learning in our country he had received, in 1832, his 
diploma of scholarship, and, as a graduate of Yale College, entered 
upon the study and soon the practice of the law. He attained high 
standing in the ranks of his profession, and gained and kept the con- 
fidence and affection of those around him, as was attested by the 
many important public trusts he was called upon to execute. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 23 

When Virginia, his native home, felt in 1861, in common with all 
other members of our Federal Union, the terrible convulsions of 
political strife, it was almost inevitable that a citizen so eminent and 
esteemed by men of all parties as Mr. Caperton should be called 
upon in that critical hour to represent his people in the public 
councils. 

While he sought not distinction for himself, he shrank not from re- 
sponsibility, nor kept in the background when danger showed itself 
at the front ; for no man in a land where courage is the rule was more 
constant in that quality, morally and physically, than he. 

He was in politics a whig — a conservative-union man — and with 
such views became a member of the State convention of Virginia of 

1 86 1. This is not the occasion to relate nor I the fit historian of the 
longing, lingering look cast back upon that Union, in so great degree 
the work of her sons in field and council, of her treasure and her ter- 
ritory, by the great State of Virginia as she reluctantly withdrew 
from its political association. 

The conscience and training of Allen T. Caperton bade him follow 
the political fortunes of his State, and in obedience to the call of her 
legislature he became a member of the Confederate States senate in 

1862, and served there throughout its stormy existence and until the 
end of that short-lived government. Ten years after that govern- 
ment had passed away to be known no more except in history, Mr. 
Caperton was in the vicissitude of human affairs chosen to represent 
the State of West Virginia in the Senate of the United States. 

Mr. President, I have never felt more penetrated with a sense of 
the wisdom of prompt and thorough reconciliation of our fellow-coun- 
trymen, so lately and violently at strife, than when I recognized in 
the course of my confidential relations of private friendship with 
Allen Caperton how truly and wholly his heart beat for the hap- 
piness and prosperity of our whole country and for the perpetuation 
of its constitutional government. Would that now the power could 



24 ADDK] - OF MR. DOOl II ON 1 lit 

be given to me to picture in all its glowing and truthful reality the 
fidelity of his honest soul, that has so lately taken its flight, to the 
integrity and welfare of our Government and the happiness of all 
its people. Sure am I that distrust and suspicion toward men such 
as he, and from the section of country with which he was politically 
identified, would vanish, and forever, from the breasts of their fellow- 
country men of the more northern section of the Union. 

Honor and truth are not mere idle abstractions. They are the liv- 
ing and practical realities upon which men and women found their 
best reliance for personal happiness, and which constitute the real 
bulwarks of a nation's welfare and safety, without which written 
i (institutions are mockeries and laws mere pitfalls. 

In the life of the modest gentleman whose death we mourn these 
qualities were constantly exemplified, and from our contemplation of 
them and their exercise may we not take new resolve to pay them 
due respect in our memory of the dead, and call for their recognition 
and practice in our intercourse with the living. 



Address of Mr. Booth, of Palifornia. 

Mr. President: We have paused in our daily labor, turned aside 
from the routine of business and from the consideration of those 
grave questions which disturb the public mind with vague alarm, to 
pay tribute of respect to one who in his brief service in this body, by 
his kindness, courtesy, and frankness, made each of us his friend, and 
who discharged his public duties with industry, intelligence, fidelity, 
and honor. 

This chamber is the arena of intellectual combat, and when the 
greal monarch drops his baton the conflict of opinion is suspended. 

In all stations, in every allotment of life, it is well that we should 
sometimes be brought to the absolute contemplation of death and 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 25 

the realization that to each of us it is inevitable and near. The days 
of our life are numbered; at each sunset there is one less. The sands 
of our life are measured. While I speak they are wasting. 

Though death is as "common as any, the most vulgar thing to 
sense," though it hath been "cried from the first corse till he that 
died to-day l this must be so,'"' it still remains the great mystery whose 
overshadowing presence awes us into a sense of our insignificance, 
and shows us the objects of our pursuit and passionate desire in their 
cold, naked reality. And this is its office to the living. Not lips 
touched with the fire of genius can so solemnize us to a sense of duty, 
so plead for the right, so admonish us of the vanity of human expec- 
tation as the dumb, cold lips of the dead. Beneath these forms and 
trappings, beneath this covering of flesh, our skeletons are marching 
to the grave. And everything on earth that we long for, seek, strive 
for, is but a covered skeleton. Adorn it as we may, cheat ourselves 
as we will, "to this complexion it must come at last;" and then dust 
and ashes. 

Six months ago, if Allen Tavlor Caperton had entered this 
chamber and passed to his seat, it would have been a commonplace 
incident, as little noted as your or my coming to-day. If he should 
enter that door now, what an awe would fall upon us all. If he 
should rise at his desk to speak, with what rapt suspense we should 
listen. Not the most eloquent words that ever fell from mortal lips 
could so enchain attention as the lightest syllable from his. 

Yet if he could come back from the "undiscovered country" and 
speak to us as in the flesh, do we not know what his message would 
be ? Would he not counsel peace and good-will ? Could lie incul- 
cate a higher lesson than that taught of old, that "righteousness ex- 
alteth a nation," that "error shall pass away like a shadow, the truth 
shall endure forever?" Could he not tell us that self-seeking is not 
the highest wisdom, that safe guidance is not found in passion, and 
that institutions can neither be built nor preserved by hatred or vio- 



4 c 



26 ADDRESS OF MR. BOOTH ON" THE 

lence? Could be reveal a diviner precept than "love," a more sai red 
duty than "charity?" If it has been permitted him to pass in review 
the procession of events in the unnumbered ages since man appean d 
cm the earth and to realize that history has but begun, that in the 
curtained future there are countless ages to be, could he not tell us 
that in the grand sweep of destiny mere personal success, the pride 
of place, the lust of power, are of as little worth as the foam on the 
river ? 

This is the message from the dead past to the living present; this 
is the lesson of the silent centuries; this is the voice from the grave 
of all who have gone before. 

Those who knew Senator CapertON belter than I have already 
spoken of the traits of his character and the incidents of his life. In 
our brief acquaintance he impressed me as a man of culture and re- 
finement ; of strong practical sense, impatient with what he regarded 
as abstractions, zealous for the promotion of every material interest, 
and devoted to a reunion of hearts and hands through all the land. 
His neighbors told me he was a man of active habits, interested in 
every enterprise for the advancement and improvement of the coun- 
try where he lived, strong in his convictions, outspoken in his opin- 
ions, steadfast in his friendship, and of bountiful hospitality. 

He had this true test of genuine worth: his character and temper 
softened and mellowed with years and experience. Children loved 
him, and the dumb beast regarded him as a natural protector. 

He lived, where his ancestors had for several generations, in a re- 
gion of great beauty of landscape — a high plateau, with mountain- 
peaks in the distance, with intervales and opening vistas of surpass- 
ing loveliness — oft" the great lines of travel, and where the stream of 
life seemed to eddy into a quiet circle. It was a spot where old cus- 
toms survive, old fashions prevail, and old faiths are cherished. From 
his beautiful home, through the broad English lawn — almost a park — 
we bote his remains to the village church, where his old friends and 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 27 

neighbors had gathered from all the country round. The solemn 
service for the dead was spoken. We followed him to the grave-yard 
on the hill and left him with his fathers. 

His task is finished. He has no part or lot in all that u done be- 
neath the sun. No more for him the voice of love, the song of glad- 
ness, the load of care, the cup of sorrow. Not for him the beauty of 
spring, the splendor of summer, the glory of autumn, the uncrowned 
majesty of winter. Flowers will spring from his grave ; storms will 
beat upon it; morning will greet it with her earliest light, night 
crown it with her stars, and the earth, rolling in her great orb in in- 
finite space, will bear his dust with hers, till time shall be no more. 

Ah, mystery of death, and greater mystery of life ! both are in the 
hand of Him without whose knowledge not a sparrow falls ; obedi- 
ent to whose will the tides of human destiny ebb and flow, and unto 
whom a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is gone, or a 
watch in the night. 



^Address of JAn. Price, of ]Vest yiRGiNiA. 

Mr. President : I was no doubt better acquainted with the de- 
ceased than was any other Senator here. We lived in adjoining 
counties, practiced law in the same courts, were members of the same 
legislatures and the same conventions, and generally had the same 
interests to represent. Our acquaintance extended back to his early 
manhood, when he first commenced his professional and entered 
upon his public career. 

He was the son of Hugh Caperton, esq., a gentleman of fascinat- 
ing address and popular manners, of great compass and energy of 
mind, and who, by his energy and sound judgment, had amassed a 
large fortune, which he left unimpaired and unembarrassed to his 
children. He was repeatedly called on by the citizens of his county 
to represent them in the popular branch of the State legislature; and 



28 ADDRESS OF MR. PRICE ON THE 

lie always served them to their entire satisfaction. He was also 
elected to Congress from his district at a critical period in our history, 
and rendered service satisfactory to his district. 

Allen Taylor Caperton, the subject of our remarks to-day, was 
born on the 21st day of November, 1810, in the town of Union, 
Monroe County, Virginia, now West Virginia, and departed thislifeon 
the 26th day of July, 1876. lie inherited his father's popularity and 
a large estate. He received the rudiments of an English education at 
1 In- village school of his native town. At that time there being no 
schools of a high grade in that immediate neighborhood, hewassent to 
the academy at Huntsville, Alabama, where heremained two and a half 
years. He was then sent to the Lewisburgh Academy, which was pre- 
sided over by that historic character Rev. Dr. John McElhenny, the 
pioneer preacher in the Presbyterian Church, a veneration for whose 
person and character Mr. Caperton cherished during the remainder 
of his life. 

In early manhood (the date I have not obtained) Mr. Caperton 
became a student at Yale College, where he remained four years and 
until he was graduated. Upon his return to Virginia he went to the 
university of that State, where he was also graduated. He finally 
finished his education at General (afterward Judge) Baldwin's law- 
school in Staunton, Virginia, and immediately thereafter commenced 
the practice of his profession. 

He was married, in the twenty-second year of his age, to Miss 
Harriet Echols, a lady of great intellectual, social, and moral worth, 
whose acquaintance he made while a student at Yale College, and 
who remains his survivor. 

Mr. Caperton filled many offices of trust and importance. 

The first office that he filled was a State directorship in the James 
River and Kanawha Company, as successor to his father, who had 
held that office and resigned. This, though not a lucrative office, 
having neither salary nor perquisites, was deemed one of great State 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN' T. CAPERTON. 29 

importance, as it was then expected that by this improvement the 
waters of the Chesapeake would be connected with the waters of the 
Mississippi through the State of Virginia. 

In April, 1841, he became a candidate for the State legislature, and 
was elected to represent his native county in the house of delegates. 

In April, 1844, he was elected to the State senate from the counties 
of Monroe, Giles, Montgomery, Floyd, Greenbrier, and Mercer. 
During this term, which was one of four years, he had the misfortune 
to lose his venerated father. He filled no political or civil office from 
that time until TS50. He was the executor of his father's will, which 
devolved upon him a large mass of business, which, with a large and 
increasing professional business, gave him full employment without 
being involved in the mazes of politics. 

In August, 1850,3 convention being called to amend the State con- 
stitution, his fellow-citizens of Monroe, Giles, Tazewell, and Mercer 
Counties called on him to become one of their representatives, to which 
call he responded affirmatively and was elected. In this convention he 
took a prominent part, the great question before that bodybeing the 
basis of representation in the two houses of the legislature,one party 
assuming that white population should be the basis, the other that popu- 
lation and taxation combined should be the basis. He, in common with 
his western friends, advocated the white basis. The question was finally 
settled by a committee of compromise, of which he was a member. 

He was twice upon the whig electoral ticket as elector, but failed 
to secure his election because his party was in the minority in the 
State at both elections. 

In 1859 he was induced to become again a candidate for the house 
of delegates, with a view of pushing on the great central improvement 
which is now known as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. He 
was elected and served two sessions. It would scarcely be necessary 
for me to say that he was one of the leading members of that body, if 
not the very leader. 



3° 



ADDRESS OF MR. PRICE ON im. 



While he was thus serving in the house of delegates, he, in 1S61, 
was elected a delegate to the State convention known as the secession 
convention. He entered that convention with a determination to 
save the Union if he could ; but when President Lincoln called for 
money and troops to subjugate the South, he did not think the Union 
could be preserved, and voted for the separation. 

In 1862, Hon. William Ballard Preston, one of the senators in the 
confederate congress, having depaited this life, Mr. Caperton was 
elected to fill the vacancy. 

In 1875 he was elected by the legislature of West Virginia a Sen- 
ator in this body, which he remained to the time of his death. 

This is his public history, the principal part of which is known to 
your humble speaker. 

I said in the outset that he inherited his father's popularity and a 
large estate, which assertion I again repeat with the addition that he 
added greatly to both. By the rehearsal which I have given of the 
chronology of his public life, it will be seen that his popularity grew 
with his growth and strengthened with his strength; that his last 
days were his most popular days; and he added to his fortune as 
well as to his popularity, and died possessed of a large estate. 

As a lawyer he was always ingenious and persuasive. He under- 
stood law as a science, and practiced with great success. He was 
generally engaged in all the important cases that arose within the 
range of his practice. He generally argued his cases with marked 
ability, though he was not always equal to himself. He required to 
be aroused; without that his utterance was a little hesitating, and his 
mind seemed timid in taking hold of the subject ; but when thoroughly 
aroused, his language flowed copiously and his mind worked 
smoothly and vigorously. He could not only follow up his subject 
in argument, but could add beauty to strength ; he could cull flowers 
fur the jury and cany on a playful dalliance with everything he met 
wiih un the wayside. He was probably the best lawyer I ever knew 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 3 1 

who did not commence the practice of law from necessity, poverty 
being, as a general thing, necessary, as I think, to professional suc- 
cess. I can unite with another friend of his who said, just before the 
senatorial election in 1875, "Mr. Caperton is an accomplished 
man in every respect." His disposition was genial and his fund of 
information copious, which made him attractive as a social compan- 
ion. 

His last illness was short. No one thought the symptoms of his 
case were alarming. Some of his family were with him, not as watch- 
men at the bed of death, but as nurses around the bed of sickness. He 
was bolstered up in bed with pillows, and said to his children who 
were present, " Hoist the window ; hoist it quickly," and swooned 
away and died. The winged messenger was sped with too fatal an 
aim. Death had struck its victim, and he is no more. " He is gone 
from us and will not come to us, but we may go to him." 

" The ways of Providence are inscrutable and past finding out." 
But this we know, that "it is appointed unto men once to die." He 
has gone before us. We must soon follow. 

To say that he was an affectionate husband and a kind father 
would be commonplace and almost a mockery in terms, for his family 
not only reverenced him, but almost adored him. They have sus- 
tained the "irreparable loss," and no one can realize the deep mean- 
ing of this expression who has never experienced it. We need not 
go into the sanctuary of the family to find mourners ; they are found 
in the streets, in the by-ways and the hedges, and everywhere where 
Mr. Caperton was known. 

Deeply sympathizing with his family and other friends, in humble 
sorrow we submit to the fiat of an all-wise and inscrutable Providence. 

Mr. President, as a further testimonial of respect to the memory of 
the deceased, I move that the Senate do now adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to unanimously; and (at four o'clock and 
eleven minutes p. 111.) the Senate adjourned, 



32 ADDRESS OF MR. HEREFORD ON lilt. 



PROCEEDINGS IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



December. 22, 1S76. 

A message from the Senate, by Mr. Sympson, one of its clerks, 
communicated the proceedings of the Senate in regard to the death 
of Hon. Allen T. Caperton, late a Senator from West Virginia. 

The Speaker. The Chair lays before the House the following res- 
olutions, received from the Senate : 

Resolved, That as an additional mark of respect to the memory of 
Allen T. Caperton, late a Senator from the State of West Virginia, 
business be now suspended that the friends and associates of the de- 
ceased may pay fitting tribute to his private and public virtues. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate this resolution to the 
House of Representatives. 



Address of Mr. Hereford, of West j/irginia. 

Mr. Speaker: For the first time since the State of ^Ycst Virginia 
was organized as a separate State are we (ailed upon to mourn the 
death of one of her representatives in the national councils. 

We are told in the sacred writings that — 

II is Letter to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: 
for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. 

May it prove so in this instance. May we lay this visitation of 
Divine Providence to our hearts, and leave this hall better men, bet- 
ter citizens, and better legislators, legislating for the whole country 
and the continued peace thereof. 

Allen Taylor Caperton is no more. He was born in Union, 



LITE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 33 

Monroe County, Virginia, (now West Virginia,) November 21, 1S10: 
after having attended the schools in his native village, he went to the 
University of Virginia and Yale College, graduating with honor at 
the latter institution in 1831 ; after which he studied law with Judge 
Briscoe G. Baldwin, at Staunton, Virginia; he was admitted to the 
bar, and up to his death practiced his profession in his native county 
and several adjoining counties. Having all the advantages of a 
thorough education, and being of studious habits and fond of his pro- 
fession, he soon ranked among the very ablest lawyers in the State. 
He had a mind peculiarly adapted to the law; its catholic spirit, the 
broad principles of even and exact justice he found in the pages of 
the law library were in perfect consonance with his own nature. His 
lofty spirit disdained the arts of the pettifogger. In his practice he 
was never guilty of deception. He deceived neither client, court, 
nor jury, retaining to the last the confidence and respect of each. 
He took peculiar delight in the companionship of his brother mem- 
bers of the bar, as all can attest who ever met him professionally, or 
under his hospitable roof. But he did not confine himself exclusively 
to the labors of his profession. He took great interest in developing 
the material interests, the agricultural and mineral resources of his 
State. He was a director of the James River and Kanawha Canal, 
in which he took a great interest up to the time of his death; he had 
a great and life-long desire to see by the construction of this mag- 
nificent work the waters of the mighty West connected with those 
of the East. 

He was for several years a member of the State house of delegates 
and of the State senate of Virginia, his last senatorial term being from 
1859 to i860. During his service in the legislature, enabled as he 
was by his store of knowledge, he assisted very materially in mold- 
ing the code of laws of that State. He was also a member of the 
constitutional convention of that State in 1861. At the breaking 
out of the late war he was originally opposed to extreme measures, 



5 C 



34 ADDRESS OF MR. HEREFORD ON THE 

believing, with many others, that the rights they claimed could be 
more certainly obtained by battling for the right within the Union ; 
but when his State decided otherwise he followed. During the war 
he was elected to the confederate senate, which position he held at 
the close thereof. As soon as hostilities ceased he turned his face to 
the future, and from that time to the day of his death he did all in 
Ins power to restore peace, harmony, and fraternal feeling to this dis- 
tracted land. 

As long as the whig party was in existence he was one of its strong- 
est and ablest supporters. He defended its principles and devoted 
himself to its success with knightly courage and devotion. Oft and 
again in earlier days has his manly form been seen going from county 
to county, along valley and over mountain-heights, for the purpose 
of addressing his fellow-citizens in stirring and eloquent appeals to 
rally them to the standard of Henry Clay. Wherever the white 
plume of his great captain. Harry of the West, was seen, there was he. 

On February 17, 1875, after a protracted struggle, he was elected 
to the United States Senate to succeed Arthur I. Boreman. How 
short his career on that theater! Truly hath the wise man said : 
Boast not thyself of to-morrow ; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. 

During the last session of Congress we had rooms in the same 
building, and it was my fortune to see more of him in his last sickness 
than any other person. It was my lot and sad pleasure to minister 
to his varied wants in his last days on earth. His suffering at times 
was very great, after which he was easy and very cheerful. He bore 
his paroxysms of suffering with heroic fortitude, never repining. A 
short time before the critical moment his only son and eldest daugh- 
ter, with other relations, were summoned to his bed-side ; his noble 
and devoted wife being too feeble to travel. He was not aware his 
end was so near. On the last morning of his earthly existence, 
thoughtful as he always was of the pleasure of others, he suggested 
to his son and another gentleman near and dear to him who was in 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 



35 



attendance, to go to the hall of the House of Representatives to hear 
a certain discussion that was to take place, in which he felt a great 
interest. They yielded to his request, and only returned an hour or 
two before he had another and his last paroxysm. About four o'clock 
p. m. of that day, July 26, 1S76, he was sitting up in his bed con- 
versing with his son. All at once he said quickly to him, " Raise 
that window," which was done, and he immediately expired. 

"Raise that window!" How typical ! how suggestive! As the 
window of his earthly mansion was raised that of the eternal was 
opened to receive his spirit into the " house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens." 

His remains now lie buried amid the mountains where he was born, 
and over which he delighted to ramble in his boyhood days and riper 
years. 

If any one had ever doubted the high esteem in which he was held 
at home, they would have doubted no longer if they had been pres- 
ent on that last sad day when his remains were lowered into the grave. 
For miles around his friends came from their mountain homes to 
mingle their tears with his weeping family— men and women of all 
stations in life, the rich and poor, white and black; among the 
latter of whom were many who once were his slaves. That was a 
sad, sad day for the little village of Union. Sadness and silence 
reigned over that mountain village as if they had lost their last and 
dearest friend. 

But a few weeks preceding this scene a similar one had been wit- 
nessed. Augustus A. Chapman, a former member of this House for 
two terms, had paid the debt of nature. Caperton and Chapman 
in one brief summer. A. A. Chapman was also a man of mark and 
distinction, beloved by all, disliked by none— a noble and generous 
soul. Both have left behind them fond, devoted wives, noble speci- 
mens of true womanhood, and each a son worthy to bear the names 
of their respective fathers, and each several daughters inheriting all 



36 ADDRESS OF MR. HEREFORD ON THE 



the nobler and finer traits of character of their fathers. Mr. Caper- 
ton was of pure and spotless character, public and private. 

If it be true, as has been said, that public men are the true reflex 
of their constituents, then indeed may West Virginia take high rank 
among the great sisterhood of States. 

Cicero tells us thaf in his day — 

The senators, that is, the s,nes or old men of the state, dwelt in the country and 
lived on their farms. 

So did Mr. Caperton; and to its fdllest extent did he adopt the 

sentiment of Cicero when he said : 

There is nothing more profitable, for there is not in nature, in my opinion, any- 
thing more beautiful or affecting, than to behold a plantation with all the parts of 
it in complete and perfect order. • 

He delighted in horseback exercise. He was devoted to his home 
and his State. He delighted in natural scenery, and at times he 
seemed to be enchanted. 

Well do I recollect one bright, beautiful morning, when we were 
returning from Charleston on horseback, just as the sun was gilding 
the eastern horizon, we reached the highest point of Sewell Mount- 
ain, when suddenly he called to me to halt, and said, " Behold the 
beauty, grandeur, and sublimity of this view." Below us lay the 
morning fog as one broad sea, with here and there some peak taller 
than the others rising through the fog and presenting the appearance 
of so many islands, covered with the most beautiful emerald, in the 
midst of the ocean. 

Again he burst forth in his ecstasy and exclaimed — 

See yonder mountains, the everlasting mountains; how peerlessly they rise 
Like earth's gigantic sentinels discoursing to the sky. 

He could not tolerate tyranny or oppression either in the individ- 
ual or state; he was a noble specimen of truest manhood, most 
eloquently and happily illustrated in that expression of George W. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 37 

Summers, West Virginia's most gifted orator, when, describing the 
State and her people, he said : 

Her people are a bold, daring, liberty-loving people ; they are lulled to sleep at 
night by the roaring of her cataracts and awakened in the morning by the scream 
of the eagle as he takes his flight sunward. 

He had a kind, tender, and grateful heart. .Well do 1 remember 
on another occasion, when again traveling on horseback over our 
lofty mountains, when arriving at a certain spot he pointed to a farm 
some distance from the road and said, " There lives a generous, kind- 
hearted man; I shall never forget him; directly after the war, as I 
was passing that point, he came out to me and said : ' Mr. Caperton, 
you are going to Charleston; although you are a rich man in this 
world's goods I know you can have no money, for the war has just 
closed; here are a few dollars in silver that I had buried; take it.' 
I thanked him, but declined his generous offer." 

He was a man of scholarly attainments, a fine lawyer, a man of 
enlarged views on all subjects, a devoted husband and father, a warm 
friend, a generous neighbor, and a worthy example to old and young, 
at home and abroad, in public and private. He scorned everything 
like duplicity. 

In the selection of men to fill the offices of our State, from the 
highest to the lowest, he always urged that none should be elevated 
to position but men of ability and spotless character, both in public 
and private, having an eye single to the good of the State and all the 
people thereof. 

But I must detain you no longer. He is gone, gone to his long 
home. Who will dare say the world was not better by his having 
lived in it ? No more shall we look upon his manly brow and deli- 
cately-chiseled features; no more will we hear his merry laugh or 
words of encouragement and sound wisdom. 

His life was gentle; and the elements 

So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 

And say to all the world, "This was a man ! " 



38 ADDRESS OF MR. GOODE ON THE 



o 



^DDRESS OF yWR pOODE, OF VIRGINIA. 

Mr. Speaker : The representatives of the American people are 
again called upon to pause in their deliberations for the public good 
to recognize the hand of death and to render a just tribute of respect 
to the memory of a worthy compatriot and faithful public servant in 
the other end of the Capitol. 

On the 26th day of July, 1876, Allem Taylor Caperton, a Sena- 
tor from the State of West Virginia, was suddenly stricken down in 
the midst of an honorable and useful public career, and his mortal re- 
mains were borne hence to his beautiful home in the mountains of 
West Virginia, where they were tenderly consigned to the grave by 
his bereaved neighbors and friends, who had known him long and 
loved him well. As one of the Representatives from the State of Vir- 
ginia, I feel that I would disappoint the just expectations of my con- 
stituents if I failed to utter their voice of sympathy on this memorial 
occasion, and to give some expression, however inadequate, of the 
respect and esteem in which they held the distinguished dead. Vir- 
ginia claims the mournful privilege of laying a simple wreath upon 
the tomb of her departed son. Mr. Caperton was born upon the 
soil of Virginia. He was educated at her great university. Me was 
identified with her works of internal improvement. He was for many 
years an active member of her general assembly in both branches. 
He was a conspicuous member of her convention in 1 861, and served 
her with fidelity and zeal in the senate of the Confederate States until 
the c lose of the war in 1865. He loved his native State and all her 
traditions, lie cherished with filial devotion the hallowed associa- 
tions and historic glories which cluster about her honored name. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 39 

When that mother commonwealth, so rich in historic treasures, shall 
stand up in after years and point with maternal pride and tenderness 
to her long line of devoted and illustrious sons, the name of Allen- 
Taylor Caperton will not be forgotten. 

My personal acquaintance with him commenced in the Virginia 
convention of 1861. He had come into that body earnestly opposed 
to the separation of the States. He was ardently and devotedly at- 
tached to the Federal Union. He was bound to it by the strongest 
and closest ties of affection. He was exceedingly reluctant that Vir- 
ginia should attempt to dissolve her connection with it. He remem- 
bered with pride that the Union was in a great measure the creation 
of her own hands ; that it was her son who had penned the Declara- 
tion of American Independence ; that it was her son whose heaven- 
bom eloquence had first kindled the fires of the American Revolution ; 
that it was her son who was confessedly the father of the American 
Constitution. When the Union was dissolved, he exerted all his 
great powers and exhausted all his persuasive eloquence in an effort 
to bring about its restoration. He was instrumental in inaugurating 
the peace congress here at Washington. He advised that commis- 
sioners should be sent to the seceding States of the South. But after 
the war had been commenced and Virginia had been fired upon while 
bearing the olive-branch of peace, he felt that every consideration of 
duty and of honor required that she should take her position with her 
southern sisters, and, with a full knowledge of all the fearful odds 
against her, he deliberately voted to adopt her ordinance of secession. 
While the war continued, Virginia was swept throughout all her borders 
by the besom of destruction. Her sleeping cities were awakened by 
the music of bursting bombs. The thunder of hostile cannon echoed 
and re-echoed along all her coasts, and her green fields were made 
red with the best blood of her children. Rut in that trying ordeal 
through which she was called to pass, the great heart of Allen T. 
Caperton never quailed, and his heroic spirit never faltered in devo- 



40 ADDRESS OF MR. GOODE ON THE 

tion to that cause which he believed to be the cause of civil liberty 
and constitutional government. 

As a Virginia senator he supported all the war-measures of the con- 
federate government with alacrity and zeal, and never withheld a 
man or a dollar until the confederacy had fallen prostrate, bleeding 
and exhausted, before the victorious legions of the Union. Such 
was the intrepidity of his nature and such the cheerfulness of his 
courage that he moved steadily forward in the path <5f duty, unawed 
by danger and uninfluenced by any consideration save those which 
concerned the honor and welfare of his people. But when the war 
had terminated and the long night of agony and of woe had been 
spent, Mr. Caperton, as an acknowledged leader of public opinion 
in his section, was one of the first to come forward and advise his 
countrymen that it was the dictate of wisdom and patriotism to sub- 
mit manfully and cheerfully to the logic of events. He believed, 
with Edmund Burke, that true statesmanship consists in a proper 
adjustment of the conditions in which we find ourselves placed. He 
indorsed the sentiments of that eminent British classic, who said that 
"to the future, and not to the past, looks true nobility of soul." In- 
stead of indulging vain regrets over the issue of our unsuccessful 
struggle, he felt that it was a high and patriotic duty to extinguish the 
bitter memories of the war, and with uplifted brow to look bravely 
and hopefully to the future. He felt that it was no reflection upon 
southern manhood to imitate, in all respects, the great example of our 
immortal chieftain, whose watchword was duty, and who from the 
day of his surrender at Appomattox to the day of his death at Lexing- 
ton never failed to inculcate the doctrine that, having renewed our 
allegiance to the American Constitution, we too had duties to per- 
form as American citizens. His heart's desire and prayer to God was 
that we might have peace — peace between the sections and peace 
between the races. He well knew that without a lasting and endur- 
ing peace then' could be no development of our material resources, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 41 

no revival of our prostrate industries, no restoration of hope and of 
confidence to our distracted and afflicted country. 

As one of the results of the war, the State of West Virginia was 
carved from the side of old Virginia, and the county of Mr. Caper- 
ton's residence was embraced within the limits of the new State. 
Notwithstanding the fondly-cherished associations of a life-time were 
thus rudely sundered, he did not, like the captive Israelite of old, 
hang his harp upon the willow and sit down by the waters to weep, 
but, like a true man as he was, he immediately addressed himself to 
the task of developing the untold wealth and the magnificent re- 
sources of that young and highly-favored State. Nowhere else upon 
this continent can be found a more fertile and productive soil or a 
more genial and delightful climate. Her beautiful blue mountains 
abound in iron, copper, coal, lead, and other minerals. Her mag- 
nificent rivers murmur, as they roll, the music of her power. Mr. 
Caperton fully appreciated her great capabilities and her immense 
natural advantages, and instead of calling upon Hercules for help, he 
advised the people to go to work and help themselves. They have 
gone to work with an unfaltering purpose and an indomitable will 
worthy of the heroic race from which they sprang. They have ex- 
hibited recuperative energies which have not been surpassed by any 
people in any age. 

Such was the high estimate in which Mr. Caperton was held by 
the people of West Virginia that they embraced the first opportunity 
to send him as one of their representatives in that august body, the 
Senate of the United States. It is a sufficient eulogy to say of him 
that he was equal to the occasion and worthy of the exalted station. 
He was not a brilliant orator, but a wise and safe counselor. He 
was not a fierce gladiator in debate, but a modest, dignified, prudent 
Senator. Descended from an ancient stock, he was always and 
everywhere a gentleman of the old school. He was a man of such 
lofty character and incorruptible integrity that he would have felt a 



6 C 



42 ADDRESS OF MR. GOODE ON THE 

stain upon his personal honor like a wound. What a happy day it 
would be, Mr. Speaker, if every position of honor and of trust in our 
land could be filled by a man of character, who would avoid corrup- 
tion in office as he would flee from the "pestilence that walketh in 
darkness and the destruction that waiteth at noonday." But, sir, our 
true and noble and gallant friend has gone from among us forever. 
No more will his manly form be seen in these halls. No more will 
we receive the friendly, cordial grasp of his hand. No more will we 
hear his words of sympathy and of cheer to comfort and to strengthen 
us in the great battle of life. 

The mighty flood that rolls 

Its torrents to the main, 
Can ne'er recall its waters lost 

From that abyss again. 

So days and years and time, 

Descending down to night, 
Can thenceforth never more return 

Back to the sphere of light. 

And man, when in the grave, 

Can never quit its gloom, 
Until th' eternal morn shall wake 

The slumber of the tomb. 

Mr. Speaker, when the Forty-fourth Congress first assembled, the 
Representatives of the people found the Capitol draped in mourning 
for the loss of Henry Wilson, the favorite son of Massachusetts and 
thi econd officer of the Government. During the existence of this 
Congress they have paused amid the bustle and turmoil of legislative 
life In chronicle the deaths of the lamented Starkweather of Connec- 
ticut, the gifted Parsons of Kentucky, the high-toned Caperton of 
West Virginia, and our late beloved Speaker, Michael C. Kerr of In- 
diana, whose genius and virtues have illustrated the grandeur of 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN" T. CAPERTON. 43 

American institutions and lent additional luster to the American 
name. What mean all these dispensations of Divine Providence ? 
What mean all these habiliments of woe which now surround the 
Speaker's chair and meet the eye of the Representative of the people 
as he enters this hall ? The solemn lesson which they convey to each 
one of us is, " Be still, and know that I am God." 



Address of . lson jp ": : V:rc:n:a. 

Mr. Speaker: One of the most beautiful traits of the human 
character is that the living moum the loss of the dead. When rela- 
tives or friends or acquaintances are removed from earth, it forces 
upon us a renewed realization that man is bom to die, that life is but 
a span, and eternity hath no end : it arouses in our breasts the feel- 
ing of man's obligation to his God. How impressive and sorrowful 
the reflection that from the prime of life and the vigor of manhood 
we mav, under the providence of God, be stricken down in the 
twinkling of an eye. It verifies the teaching of divinity, that in the 
midst of life we are in death. 

At an early hour upon the morning of the 27th of July last I was 
shocked with the intelligence, communicated by a friend, that Sena- 
tor Caperton" was dead. How sad that solemn announcement I 
Sadder, perhaps, to me than to any other member on this floor, for the 
thought rushed upon my mind that but a few brief weeks before that 
time, when a protracted, dangerous, and wasting sickness had carried 
me almost to death's door; when my family, physicians, and friends 
had well-nigh ceased to hope for my recover)- — even when the an- 
nouncement of my death had flashed along the wires to my con- 
stituents — I remember, ah ! well and gratefully do I remember, the deep 
and anxious solicitude with which the distinguished dead whose 1 
mourn here to-day lingered at my bed-side ; well do I remember the 



44 ADDRESS OF MR. WILSON ON THE 

words of comfort he whispered in my ear, and the tender care with 
which he administered to my almost dying wants. Under the provi- 
dence of a merciful God I have been restored to health again, but 
my friend, O, my friend ! where is he ? Gone ! gone to that bourn 
whence no traveler returns. I follow him with my prayers and be- 
seech for him grace and pardon from a just and righteous God. 

At six o'clock in the evening of the 26th of July, 1876, Allen Tay- 
lor Caperton, Senator from the State of West Virginia, departed this 
life, in the sixth-sixth year of his age, in the city of Washington. His 
disease was that technically known as angina pectoris. His last illness 
was of brief duration, and was at no time regarded dangerous. His 
devoted wife was then unhappily confined to a sick-bed, at Richmond, 
Virginia, and for that reason was unable to attend her husband in his 
last hours. His son and daughter, assisted by other relatives, kept 
faithful watch over their fond father and were flattered by the hope 
of his speedy recovery. Upon the morning of the day of his death 
he was feeling so comfortable that he advised his son to attend the 
session of the House to hear the speech of an able friend. When 
the son returned he found his father sitting up in bed, brushing his 
whiskers. He suddenly called to the son to hoist the window, and 
immediately sank back on his pillow, and expired without a groan. 
We can better imagine than describe the anguish of those children, 
and the untold grief and agony that entwined itself around the heart 
of that wife when the startling, crushing news fell upon her ear that 
one whose very existence formed part of her own was called to lie 
down in the cold damp ground to sleep the sleep that knows no 
waking. 

Mr. Caperton was born near Union, Monroe County, Virginia, 
now West Virginia, November 21, 1810. He. attended school, first 
in Virginia, then at Huntsville, Alabama, next at the University of 
Virginia, and graduated at Yale College in 1839. He afterward 
studied law with Virginia's distinguished jurist. ludge Briscoe G. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF AI.LF.N T. CAPERTON. 45 

Baldwin, at Staunton, was subsequently admitted to the bar, and prac- 
ticed his profession with ability during the remainder of his life. He 
served as a director of the James River and Kanawha Canal, and 
was for several years a member of the Virginia senate and house of 
delegates. His last senatorial term in the legislature ended in i860, 
and in 1861 he was elected a member of the State constitutional 
convention which passed the ordinance of secession, and was after- 
ward elected by the legislature of Virginia a member of the Confed- 
erate States senate, in which body he served until the close of the war. 

After the close of the war he returned to his home in the mountains 
of his nativity, where, borrowing the idea from another, it may be 
said , the air is pure, heaven serene, and God is near. Here he intended 
to spend the evening of his life in his professional and private pur* 
suits and in the enjoyments of his home. He engaged actively in 
presenting to eastern capitalists the vast and superior coal and tim- 
ber regions of the southwestern portion of his State, and to his energy 
and ability perhaps as much as to those of any other gentlemen are 
the citizens of the East and West indebted for that development 
which gives cheap fuel, cheap lumber, and promises of cheap trans- 
portation. But his mission had not yet been fulfilled; his people had 
further need of his talent, his experience, his learning, and his purity, 
and after an exciting and somewhat bitter contest between other gen- 
tlemen for a seat in the United States Senate in the winter of 1874-75 
the legislature of his State conferred that high honor upon him. He 
was an element of compromise acceptable to all, and the honor was 
the more thankfully and graciously received because it came to him 
unsought. 

In early life he was a whig in politics ; was an admirer of Henry 
Clay, Josiah Randall, and their compeers, and a co-worker with them. 
The most cordial personal relations existed between himself and Mr. 
Randall, and the visits of the latter gentleman to the mineral springs 
of Virginia, and to his landed interests in the coal regions on the Great 



46 ADDRESS OF MR. WILSON ON THE 

Kanawha, brought them into frequent association. Upon the disin- 
tegration of the whig party Mr. Randall was prominent in heading 
the movement to unite the whigs with the conservative-democratic 
party. His great speech, delivered at Chambersburgh, Pennsylvania, 
on the 6th of August, 1856, at the request of the democratic con- 
vention of that State, defined the policy of the wing of the party who 
aided the democrats in achieving the victory of that year. In this 
movement he was ably seconded by Mr. Caperton, and during the 
remainder of their lives they co-operated in carrying out the policy 
thus inaugurated. 

Mr. Caperton discharged the duties of the various positions he 
was called upon to fill with honor to himself and benefit to his con- 
stituents. It was in the constitutional convention of Virginia, in 
1861, that I became intimately acquainted with him. He there, as 
always before and since, displayed the fine culture, high character, 
and conservative views that drew around him the love and confidence 
of his people. He was a conservative-union man, opposed to seces- 
sion, and declared that it was not the remedy for the evils of which his 
State complained — that secession would lead to coercion, coercion 
would produce war, and war would result in distress and desolation. 
It was not until his State had taken the fatal step that he determined 
to follow ; but, being of that school which regarded the doctrine of 
paramount allegiance to the State, when his mother, Virginia, cast her 
fortune with the confederate government, he threw his influence for 
weal or for woe with that mother and determined to share her fate, 
whatever that fate might be. Upon the close of the war he accepted 
the situation, and acquiesced in the abandonment of secession and 
the overthrow of the institution of slavery. 

He also acquiesced in the validity of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 
fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States, giv- 
ing to them the broadest interpretation placed upon them by the 
courts of the country ; but he also tenaciously clung to those other 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON'. 47 

familiar provisions of the Constitution, one of which guarantees to 

every State in the Union a republican form of government, and the 

other reserving to the States respectively, or to the people, the powers 

not delegated to the United States nor prohibited by it to the States. 

His earthly career is ended, and his friends in their grief point with 

satisfaction to his life as one well spent — upon which neither spot 

nor blemish can be found. The chief feature of his character was its 

purity and unbending integrity ; he lived and died an honest man — 

the noblest work of God. Sorrow for such an one is an affliction we 

cherish and brood over in solitude ; we would not wipe out from our 

recollection if we could the memories of the man. "The love which 

survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul." " There 

is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song — there is a recollection of 

the dead to which we turn, even from the charms of the living." 

Let me mingle tears with thee, 
Mourning for him who mourned for me. 



^ddress of Mr. Tucker, op Virginia. 

Having known Mr. Allen Taylor Caperton, late Senator from 
West Virginia, intimately for more than a quarter of a century, it is 
fit that, as his friend and as a representative of his mother-common- 
wealth, I should speak of his public and private character to-day. 

He sprang from a race which removed from the south of France to 
the north of Ireland; and thence his great-grandfather, Adam Caper- 
ton, came to America. 

His grandfather went to Kentucky, in its earjy history, and was 
killed by the Indians in a battle known as Estill's defeat. 

His father, Hugh Caperton, began life in Monroe, then Greenbrier, 
County, Virginia. He was a prominent man, was esteemed a gentle- 
man of honor, and was a citizen of great public spirit and wide in- 



4§ ADDRESS OF MR. TUCKER ON THE 



fluence, and full of good deeds to the people among whom he lived 
and died. 

He was a member of the State legislature, and for several terms a 
Representative of his district in this House of Congress, in which 
body he established a cordial and permanent friendship with such 
men as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. 

His distinguished son, whose death we now deplore, was liberally 
educated at the University of Virginia and then at Yale College, 
being graduated at the latter institution in 183 1. He studied law at 
Litchfield, Connecticut, and afterward under the late eminent Judge 
Briscoe G. Baldwin, of the court of appeals of Virginia. 

He began the practice of the law in his native county, and rose 
rapidly in public confidence as a counselor, advocate, and man. He 
was successively a member of both houses of the legislature of his 
native State, of her constitutional conventions of 1850 and 1861, and 
was elected by her legislature in 1863 to the senate of the Confed- 
erate States, in which he served honorably to the close of the war. 
Two years ago he was elected to the Senate of the United States by 
the State of West Virginia, and died in July last while faithfully 
doing his duty in that body. 

His career, so full of manifestations of public esteem, gives evi- 
dence of rare mental and moral endowments, and justifies me, who 
knew him well, in attempting to portray them as they were grouped 
in his noble character. 

His intellect was active, acute, and vigorous, with a substratum of 
shrewd and masculine common sense, which constituted him a wise 
and sagacious counselor. He had imaginative powers superadded, 
which gave fervor and earnestness to his convictions and made him 
an able and often an eloquent advocate at the bar, on the hustings, 
and in the Senate. His culture was liberal, and, while his study of 
his profession and of political science did not rank him with the most 
learned and profound lawyers of the country, yet he was most efficient 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 49 

in the conduct of his cause, very successful in the management of 
business, eminently safe as an adviser, and an able public servant. 

In the very depths of his soul he was brave, disinterested, gen- 
erous, and true. He was sincere and constant in his friendships ; 
open, manly, and magnanimous, though stern and resolute to his foes. 
Deceit could not cross the confines of a heart whose inmost citadel 
was held by honor and truth. He was frank and candid, and in his 
word absolute reliance was reposed ; for as his sincerity was undoubted, 
so his courage was a pledge to make it good to his friend or against 
his opponent. 

To these sterling and manly virtues were united all the gentleness 
of a tender and loving nature. To his friends his society was a genial 
sunshine. Good sense, with wit and humor; earnestness of purpose, 
with perennial pleasantry; the manly activities of a firm and resolute 
nature, with a taste for poetry and music; gentle loves and ardent 
friendships in the •midst of the fierce struggles with adverse fortune 
or malign influences — these were mingled in beautiful proportions on 
the page of his history. 

His mountain home was the seat of a hospitality where his guest 
forgot it was not his own, or only recalled it as he admired the easy 
freedom and graceful dignity of a host who banished all formality in 
the nobleness of his welcome and the simplicity and generosity of his 
entertainment. 

He had the warmest sympathies for his own people. "The short 
but simple annals of the poor" ever found his ear attentive. Their 
early traditions, their homely thoughts, their sturdy and healthful 
sentiments, he heard, appreciated, and cherished. To his equals he 
seemed proud and reserved, until friendship melted the surface, be- 
neath which was the warm current of his - affections; but he was never 
haughty to the lowly, the poor, or the helpless. To these he was gen- 
tle, tender, and sympathetic; so that popularity followed him un- 
sought. He charmed childhood by his playfulness; won the esteem 



7 



5° ADDRESS OF MR. TUCKER ON THE 

of the gentler sex by his attractive manners, his cordial deference, 
his genuine respect, and his chivalrous courtesy and manhood paid 
homage to his liberality, his courage, his honest)', his magnanimity, 
and his good sense. 

In his own household — I pause upon its sacred threshold but to 
utter one word: As husband and father he merited the grief which 
can only be assuaged by Him whose promise is sure, to be the hus- 
band of widowhood and the father of orphanage! 

I have spoken of Mr. Caperton as a man adorning society bj his 
presence and as a citizen blessing his people "by his beneficence. 

I must speak of him as a public man. He was animated by a high 
public spirit, lending his aid to all schemes which would benefit and 
advance the interests of his community, his State, and his country, 
in its largest sense. 

He was a whig in politics in early life, and adhered to that party 
until i860 with consistent and unshaken fidelity: After the presi- 
dential election of that year he was elected to the convention of 1861 
as a Union man. He was a patriot, who loved the Union of our 
fathers with a depth of devotion which was only surpassed by his 
veneration for Virginia. And he adhered to the Union until the 
proclamation of Mr. Lincoln of April 15, 1861, summoning Virginia 
to assist in the war upon her southern sisters, when he decided to fol- 
low her into the southern confederacy, and was faithful and true to 
its cause until it perished by war in 1865. 

But Mr. Caperton was no visionary or dreamy abstractionist. His 
mind was sagacious and practical. In the overthrow of the confed- 
eracy he saw the divine decree that the future fortunes of the South 
were bound up in the restored Union under its Constitution, and that 
dutv demanded of him to devote his future life to building up the 
waste places of his own loved land, to repairing the breaches in the 
Federal system, and to promoting the liberty and the progress of the 
people of these reunited States. 



I know that such was his patriotic purpose and has been his ear- 
nest effort. He fell at the post of his duty, and has left to his friends 
and to his countrymen a name without a stain, a character for spot- 
less and lofty integrity, and the perpetual memory of a noble and 
honorable life. 

Mr. Caperton and our late Speaker died within a few weeks 

of each other. Mr. Kerr passed away amid mountain scenes in 

Virginia resembling those familiar to the eye of Mr. Caperton. 

Virginia may well mourn them together; the one her faithful son, 

the other who, drawing the inspiration of his opinions from our 

State, ever held her in a reverence which merits the tribute of her 

sorrow, as his eminent virtues and abilities won the esteem of her 

Representatives. In this Hall, where lately eloquence lent its 

voice of praise to the memory of Kerr, we may speak, above the 

graves of both, our sincere conviction tiiat in their death the 

country has lost the sagacious counselsof two patriot statesmen, 

never more needed than in this critical period of her history, to 

guide her in the path of prosperity andhonor and an enduring 

peace. 

Mr. Speaker, I have thus endeavored to delineate the character of 
my friend in simple words and with fidelity to truth. I dare not 
trust myself to speak of the personal relations which bound us for 
many years nor of the beautiful memories of the past which crowd 
upon my mind. 

In this desperate battle of life, as we near its close, so many who 
began the march with us have fallen like leaves in wintry weather, 
that we naturally feel as if the friends who are gone were more 
numerous than those who remain. What we are meant to learn from 
these providential events is not merely the trite lesson of the uncer- 
tainty of our life, but that as death ends so life must be filled up with 
duty. Duty is indeed the whole of our life, the sublimest word as it 
is the grandest thought of our race. As we look in the face of 



52 ADDRESS OF MK. KASSON ON THE 

our honored dead, where passion's flush has yielded to perpetual 

pallor — 

Before decay's effacing fingers 

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers, 

And marked the mild, angelic air, 

The rapture of repose that's there — 

we feel how solemn it is to die and close forever the book of human 
purpose, and human activity, and human obligation. But life is more 
solemn than death, and of deeper import. It is our only opportunity 
for responsible work, to make up that record which must stand of 
duty done in the fear of God and for the good of our race. 

Brother Representatives, we have buried one who, with us, repre- 
sented the voice of the people of these States in our Federal Union. 
We stand to-day at the grave of one of the representatives of an or- 
ganic State, in its equipollent relations to its sister commonwealths. 
Each in our respective Houses have solemn relations to this great 
system of government, and fraught with momentous results in the near 
future of our history. May we be endued with wisdom from on high 
so to perform these important functions that when our summons 
comes, as soon it must come, we may render our dread account with- 
out fear; and, life's weary warfare done, and well done, may sink 
peacefully and honorably, with firm faith and humble hope, to our 
welcome rest from all the work that wearies, and enter with immortal 
energy upon the activities and the aspirations of an eternal life in the 
presence of our Father and our God! 



Address of Mr. Kasson, of Jowa. 

Mr. Speaker: I regret that I cannot adequately contribute another 
to the fitting tributes already rendered to a character so respected 
and so amiable as that of the late Senator Caperton. His life here 
in Washington was so quiet, his public service in the American Sen- 
ate so short, that comparatively few of us on this floor had the pleas- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 53 

ure of even a personal acquaintance with him; but so many of us as 
did know him — and I am glad to have been one of that number — 
most sincerely unite with the delegation from his own honored State 
in a common regret at his departure from these scenes of his official 
duty, and in a common grief that his presence will never again 
brighten the hours of our social intercourse. 

Sir, there has always been, both in the Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives, a body of useful men, rarely claiming the attention of 
the public press, rarely consuming the hours devoted to debate, but 
sound in their judgments, attentive to the duties of committees, 
patient in labor for their constituents, and conscientious in their votes. 
The applauding clamors of the public never fall to their share, never 
quicken their vanity, or give them a deceptive pleasure. No wreaths 
of earthly glory are woven for their brows. No eager, selfish am- 
bitions induce them to provoke or to participate in popular tumults, 
in the turbulence of which they may rise to temporary distinction. 
They love peace for themselves and peace for their country. Their 
reward is not sought in popular applause, but in an approving con- 
science. The God who speaks in a "still, small voice," not he who 
speaks amid the rending winds of tumultuous praise or in the earth- 
quake of civil strife, is the object of their worship. Faithful'to duty 
as they see it, their lives pass, giving and receiving blessing, tran- 
quilly to their end. 

To this class of useful men and trustworthy public servants Sen- 
ator Caperton belonged during the period of my acquaintance with 
him, faithful to his constituents, faithful to his own convictions of 
duty, giving to his country the benefit of his large experience in 
affairs without conceit and without ostentation. In social life his 
quiet nature gave an illumination to the circle in which he moved. 
Even his presence served as a bar to discord and an invitation to 
conciliation. Elected to a position in the confederate senate during 
the years of our national trouble, it might have been expected that he 



54 ADDRESS OF MR. HARDENBERGH ON THE 

would enter the Senate of our reunited States with prejudices which 
would mar his record or impair his usefulness. But his character 
was too true, ilirect, and sincere to admit such a result. From the 
moment he took his official oath as a member of that exalted body 
charged with the vast interests of this Republic, he seemed to have 
no thought which was at discord with his patriotic duty. He became 
a true son of his united country, and not a word from his lips ever 
fanned the dying embers of civil strife. His action in the Senate, in 
committees, and in society was an assurance of returning fraternity. 
So far as we have any knowledge, no angers, personal or political, 
remained to be buried in his grave. No one there had need to sup- 
press a frown. Only those who bore to him the sentiments of kind- 
ness and affection could be found in all the range of his social rela- 
tions. 

Thus, Mr. Speaker, this House knows no distinction of party names 
as we gather to this memorial service. We all reluctantly bid fare- 
well to our late associate in Congress. We all honored him living; 
we all revere his memory, dead. We all wish to lay some fond trib- 
ute upon his tomb. All of us deeply sympathize with those who 
were nearest to him in the ties of kindred and with his congressional 
associates from his own State. We all are to see his face no more 
on earth. We all pray for a meeting in the other and happier world 
to which he has gone. 



Address of Mr. j^ardenbergh, of JVew Jersey. 

Mr. Speaker: Death's hurricane again has passed and a stately 
tree has fallen, rich in the foliage and fruits of its gathered years, at 
once an ornament, a beauty, and a blessing. 

A stricken family bewails its loved one lost; a sovereign State 
mourns an illustrious son. called awaj in the maturity of his power; 
the Senate drapes again with the devices of mourning a Senator's 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 55 

chair, and we attest by our spoken grief that another member of the 
Forty-fourth Congress has passed through the portals of the tomb 
and a spirit ascended to the bosom of its Father and its God. 

It is right that we should pause in our avocations, and while 
laying our garlands upon his tomb, give fitting expressions to the 
thoughts which instinctively well up in the heart. It is also right 
that as representatives of the people we should bear our testimony 
to the virtues which gave dignity to and adorned his character, for 
he was /;•//(' to his high trust, and the sentiment is at once chaste and 
beautiful that marks an immemorial custom when death enters here, 
as State joins with State to attest the common sorrow as mourners 
at the grave of an associate and a friend. We cannot repress our 
grief when the "good man" dies. Society feels the vacuum when 
an educated mind is withdrawn forever from its service and a ray of 
broadest light expires, light furnished by that inward and immortal 
lamp which when its mission upon earth has ended is trimmed anew 
by angel hands to shine forever in the land beyond. 

The mind of man in its sphere and destiny is essentially immortal. 
It is true it has its periods of youth and age ; its rise, its progress, its 
decline; yet, like the oak whose withered branches have withstood 
the storms and gales of centuries, when its leaves are strewn by wail- 
ing winds and angry blasts, from the small but gradual unfolding of 
that vital substance spring forth into life and beauty as a new crea- 
tion the buds and blossoms of another year. 

There have been many vacant seats since first we gathered at 
our country's call. Massachusetts weeps still at Wilson's grave, for 
he was her gifted son, reared from toil, and the record of his useful 
public service in times that gave development to greatness will alike 
forever adorn her own and the nation's annals. 

Connecticut has lain away with tender hands a gallant Senator 
and a faithful Representative once of us here. Kentucky's tears fell 
thick and last as the manly form of Parsons was borne away to 



56 ADDRESS OF MR. HARDE.VBERGH ON THE 

repose beneath her generous sods. A few days since and all the 
eloquence of woe was heard within this Hall as we rested from our 
pursuits of legislation at Indiana's and the nation's loss that our 
Speaker, her sturdy son of Roman type, lay buried from our sight ; 
and now West Virginia, virgin State, born into the Union amid the 
mightiest of earth's great warfares, has vailed her temples in mourn- 
ing as the sad procession again was formed to bear her departed 
Senator o'er her hills and through her vales at once to his home and 
to his grave. Born upon her soil, with gifted powers early trained 
in academic groves, he gave to her his noblest services. And for 
these she loved him and crowned him with her highest civic honors. 
Jt was right it should thus be. That country best honors itself as it 
confers its dignities upon its worthiest and most illustrious sons, tor 
the record of their lives will mark the noblest pages of its career. 

There was a period in Grecian history denominated the " heroic 
age." The mystic spirit of that classic race had invested men with 
the dignity of gods. So wonderful had been their achievements, so 
exalted their career, that the mere attributes of ordinary humanity 
were not sufficient to account for the virtues they possessed. Their 
names were inscribed upon the warrior's shield, lifted up as the silent 
guardians of the public weal, adorned the temples dedicated to jus- 
tice; for in all places and on all occasions where patriotism sought 
example the heroes of classic Greece claimed the reverence and 
affection of the people. 

Mr. Speaker may not the intelligent inhabitants of a hemisphere 
unknown to the ancient kingdoms of the world when truth was 
vailed in fiction and before the revealment of a superior wisdom to 
mankind, as we cross the threshold of our new centennial, give 
higher witness to our own "heroic age" as memory reverts amid 
such touching scenes as this to the long list of minds of giant mold 
from those who founded to those who in the providence of God may 
11 erve this best of human governments? Standing as we do by 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 57 

the new-made graves of Wilson, Ferry, and of Starkweather, of Par- 
sons, Kerr, and Caperton, shall we not learn lessons anew of the 
patriot's duty and the legislator's high responsibility, that passion 
and prejudice and envy shall be quenched in that nobler spirit of 
endeavor whose patriotism is the love of country, whose code of 
morals is the love of man ? Then the pillars of our Republic will 
be the firmer set, its destiny the surer be, and then indeed shall be 
given a purer emphasis to the language of the Roman bard : 

Ye have raised monuments more lasting than brazen statues, higher than ihe 
royal pyramids, which cannot be destroyed by wasting rains or the fury of the 
winds, by the scries of countless ages, or the flight of the eternal years. 



Address of JAn. Faulkner, of West Virginia. 

Mr. Speaker : My colleague who sits near me, [Mr. Hereford,] 
having, as it was altogether appropriate for him, given a somewhat 
detailed sketch of the life and services of the individual whose death 
lias just been announced, it will only be expected from me to give 
my personal recollections and impressions of the deceased, as de- 
rived from my occasional official and private association with him. 
Although we were both natives and citizens of the same State, and 
of the same grand division of the State, yet we were widely separated 
by distance from each other, and rarely met except when engaged 
in the public councils of our State or of the nation. This is not an 
occasion, in my view of it, for indiscriminate or exaggerated eulogy, 
but a very fit and appropriate occasion to portray the real character 
of the deceased, and to let the story of his life suggest such reflec- 
tions as the facts may fairly warrant. 

Mr. Caperton was not among the most distinguished men of either 
of the two States which have honored him with their confidence; but 
he was a fair and honorable representative of a high-toned and edu- 
cated class of country gentlemen who gave a character to Virginia 



8 (' 



£S ADDRESS OF MR. FAULKNER ON THE 

society and exercised a salutary influence upon the particular neigh- 
borhoods in which they lived. Inheriting a large landed estate from 
his immediate ancestor, he was removed above the necessity of pur- 
suing any profession as a means of livelihood; and yet, as was not 
uncommon among youths similarly situated with himself in that 
State, he received the benefit of a liberal and classical education, 
and passed through the curriculum of Yale and the University of Vir- 
ginia with credit and distinction. Such an education at that period 
usually embraced a course of municipal, constitutional, and national 
law, and was sought after by our young men of inherited fortunes, 
not as a means of gain or profit, but as a source of intellectual enjoy- 
ment, and as a stepping-stone to political preferment. Blessed with 
a sound constitution, a handsome person, frank and engaging man- 
ners, an easy flow of language, an ample fortune, and animated by 
noble but modest aspirations for public service, no young man could 
have commenced life with promise of a more useful and honorable 
career. 

His mind was quick, sprightly, penetrating, and accurate, but not 
of the highest and most robust order. It had not been disciplined 
by habitual labor nor invigorated by the stern collison of intellect- 
ual gladiatorship. His memory was tenacious and his fancy occa- 
sionally brilliant, while a suppressed and gentle humor gave a pecu- 
liar charm to his conversation. His literary taste, naturally acute 
and delicate, had been assiduously cultivated and improved by a care- 
ful study of the best English classics. 

As a statesman he was essentially conservative in all his views. He 
was a sincere believer in the superiority and value of free institutions 
and an inflexible advocate of all the just rights of the people; and 
yet he was no demagogue. His appeals were always to the reason, 
not to the passions or prejudices of his hearers. He never flattered 
popular follies, but often exhibited a peculiar pride in avowing an 
unpopular opinion if he had himself full faith in its soundness. He 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 59 

looked with intense admiration upon the wisdom and sagacity dis- 
played in the Constitution of the United States, and was disposed, 
especially in his earlier life, to give too broad and liberal a construc- 
tion to its implied powers. He was the stern and inflexible supporter 
of what he believed to be the right ; and perhaps treated with too much 
levity and harshness what was deemed by others expedient in morals 
and politics. His maxim in life was Nihil nro utile, quod non idem 
honestum. 

There was one quality which strikingly distinguished Mr. Capi u- 
ton, and which all will recognize who enjoyed the pleasure of his 
acquaintance, and that was an elevated tone of mind and morals, 
which rendered him incapable of countenancing a low or mean action. 
He shrank from all humbuggery, imposture, and false pretension as 
something vile and contaminating. He was a stranger to the gnaw- 
ings of envy; he stabbed no man in the dark; he took no unmanly 
advantage of an opponent ; he was modest in the assertion of his own 
merit; disdained to appropriate credit or honor to himself which he 
had not fairly and honestly earned, but did full justice to all who 
were associated with him in joint labors of any kind. He never 
sought to impress himself upon the world as something greater or 
better than he really was. In other words, he was throughout hie a 
sincere, truthful, honest, and honorable man. 

My acquaintance with Mr. Caperton commenced at Richmond, in 
1 841. He was then a delegate from the county of Monroe, one of the 
transmontane and western counties of that State. The agricultural 
interests of his constituents<were at that time suffering severely from 
the want of a cheap and convenient transportation of their products 
to market, and he, keenly sympathizing with their necessities, became 
soon recognized as an ardent and earnest friend of a liberal system of 
internal improvements. At that time the great scheme which ab- 
sorbed the attention of the State was a continuous line of water com- 
munication between the seaboard and the Ohio River by the valleys 



of the James and Kanawha Rivers — an enterprise suggested by the 
unerring foresight of the Father of our Country — shown to be prac- 
ticable by the engineering science of McNeil, Ellet, Fisk, and Lor- 
raine, and pushed forward in its construction by the labors of Cabell 
and the eloquence of McDowell. Mr. Capf.rton attracted attention 
by his earnest advocacy of this great national thoroughfare, a work 
which now challenges the attention of Congress and ranks among 
the public works best entitled to its consideration and patronage. 

My next association with him was in 1850, as a member of the 
reform constitutional convention of Virginia. 

The people of Virginia for half a century after the close of the revo- 
lutionary war lived under a State constitution which would hardly 
be regarded as republican in these advanced days of democratic prog- 
ress. Population as the basis of representative power in the legisla- 
ture was wholly ignored. The smallest counties, with a population of 
a few hundred inhabitants, had the same weight in the legislature with 
the largest and most populous counties numbering from twenty to 
thirty thousand; suffrage was restricted to freeholders alone; not an 
office in the State was elective by the people except members of the 
legislature. Election-precincts were unknown, and if a voter lived 
twenty or thirty miles from the court-house, it was there and there 
alone that he could declare his viva voce vote in the presence of the 
assembled voters of the county. These defects, with many others in 
the constitution of that State, were sought to be remedied by a con- 
vention which assembled in 1829, composed of a body of men as illus- 
trious as ever met together in council upon this continent. Among 
the persons composing that body were James Madison, James Monroe, 
Chief-Justice Marshall, John Randolph, Littleton Waller Tazewell, 
Benjamin W. Leigh, and a host of others scarcely less distinguished 
tin .iliility and statesmanship. Some of the most glaring defec ts in 
the then constitution were remedied; representation was somewhat 
more fairly apportioned and suffrage partially extended. But the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 6 1 

instrument, though protected from severe criticism by the illustrious 
names which framed it, and which recommended its adoption, fell far 
short of meeting the popular demand for reform. Accordingly another 
convention was called in 1850, of which Mr. Caperton wasa member. 
The results of that convention gave entire satisfaction to the popular 
mind of Virginia. Representation upon the basis of the free white 
population of the State was recognized, although, in a spirit of com- 
promise, the period was suspended for a few years when the principle 
was to be carried into full operation. Suffrage was extended to all 
free white male citizens of twenty-one years of age and upward. All 
offices were made elective by the people, with many other changes of 
an important and interesting character. In all the proceedings of 
this convention Mr. Caperton bore a useful and prominent part as a 
friend of constitutional reform, earning the respect and confidence of 
his colleagues by his good sense, sound principles, and practical sug- 
gestions. The constitution was adopted by an overwhelming major- 
ity of the people, and an impulse given to the active energies of 
the State which soon became perceptible in its rapidly-increasing 
prosperity. 

Mr. Caperton was an ardent admirer of that great and accom- 
plished statesman, Henry Clay, who gave evidence in three of the most 
memorable acts of his life of a devotion almost passionate for the per- 
petuity of the Union. This sentiment was enthusiastically responded 
to by his supporters and disciples throughout the country, who, in- 
deed, made it almost the shibboleth of party faith. But the Union 
which Mr. Clay so eloquently depicted was one of choice, of concilia- 
tion, and compromise; not of armed despotism and force. This opin- 
ion was largely shared by Mr. Caperton, and in all the movements 
preceding the breaking out of hostilities he was a firm and inflexible 
adviser of a policy that sought to preserve Virginia to the Union. 
But when the proclamation of President Lincoln was issued, calling 
upon that State, among others, to contribute her quota of troops and 



6_- ADDRESS OF MR. FAULKNER ON THE 

to become an active party to the war then about being inaugurated 
to crush the seceding States, and to imbrue her hands in the blood of 
her brethren of the South, a change came over him, as in one night it 
did over fifty thousand of the freemen and voters of Virginia. That 
proclamation boldly presented, on behalf of the Northern States, the 
stern ultimatum of war, and the alternative was then precipitated 
upon Virginia either to become a party to a war to conquer and sub- 
due the seceding States or a party to a war to maintain and defend 
rights which she had held sacred from the foundation of the Govern- 
ment. Mr. Caperton and the great mass of the people of that State 
arrayed themselves on the side of the rights and sovereignty of the 
States. From that moment his heart and his services were freely 
given to the confederate cause. 

I met with Mr. Caperton frequently after he took his seat in the 
Senate of the United States. T had occasional conferences with him 
upon measures pending before the two bodies, and it became my duty 
from time to time, as a member of the House of Representatives, to 
call his special attention to the personal claims of my constituents 
and to the local interests of my district. I found him a frank, court- 
eous, intelligent, and attentive colaborer in the work of legislation, 
ready at all times to guard and protect the interests and to promote 
the just claims of the citizens of his State. In not a single instance 
did I observe any procrastination or inattention on his part to any of 
the several matters to which I invited his attention. His service in 
that elevated and dignified body was brief, too brief to enable him to 
exhibit to the country many of those sterling qualities of head and 
heart which would have reflected credit on his State. But he is 
now gone forever from among us; his place may be filled by suc- 
cessors of greater brilliancy and of more dazzling talents; but it never 
can In- filled by any man of more virtuous and generous impulses, 
nor by one more loyal to the true interests and honor of his native 
State. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 63 

Mr. Speaker, I submit the resolutions which I send to the Clerk's 
desk to be read. 

The Clerk'read the resolutions, as follows: 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives has received with 
deep sensibility and profound sorrow the intelligence of the death of 
Hon. Allen T. Caperton, late a Senator from the State of West 
Virginia. 

Resolved, That the proceedings of this House in relation to the 
death of Hon. Allen T. Caperton be communicated to the widow 
and family of the deceased by the Clerk of the House. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect for the memory of the 
deceased this House do now adjourn. 

The resolutions were adopted; and accordingly (at five o'clock and 
thirty minutes) the House adjourned. 



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